


With the Living and the Dead

by wynnebat



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Dubious Morality, M/M, Murder, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 12:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6518632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur finds a way to deal with his least favorite candidate. Eggsy finds himself in Kentucky, much less experienced, much less armed, and much luckier than Harry would've been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With the Living and the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [prompt](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/696041.html?thread=91652841#t91652841) by oh_mcgee on [comment-fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/). 
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://wynnebat.tumblr.com/post/139609712618/arthur-finds-a-way-to-deal-with-his-least-favorite) on tumblr. 
> 
> Title from Pablo Neruda's Night on the Island.

The triumph in Arthur's eyes is worse than failing the final test. There's pity there, too, because Arthur's the worst kind of elitist. Probably doesn't even believe Eggsy's fit to shine his shoes, Eggsy thinks, resisting the urge to clock the man. It wouldn't be gentlemanly, but it would be fucking satisfying.

"I knew you couldn't make it," Arthur tells him.

Eggsy considers punching him anyway. What the hell kind of place is this, where the closest thing he's got to a best mate and—mentor, father's friend, man with a great ass, whatever Harry is to him—have killed innocent animals just to get a place at its table.

He's halfway across the room when Arthur says, "I never said this was the end of your candidacy."

Eggsy turns around. "What do you mean? Roxy shot her dog." A cute, fluffy thing already four times the size of JB. Fuck, he hadn't realized she was that ruthless. "She won."

"She earned the right to the Lancelot name, yes. But that's not the only vacancy we have. Kingsman employs a number of regular agents. It's less glamorous, but no less interesting a job. You could even perform missions with Galahad, if support is required."

Nothing ever comes free. Especially not when it's a man who's disliked him from day one doing the offering. "What do you want me to do for it?"

"You'll undergo a recruitment test, so to speak. Nothing like all the Lancelot trials. We know your skills well by now. No, your task is to attend a meeting of a group that's been worrying Kingsman quite a bit lately, and record everything you see for Merlin to analyze."

"What, like a mafia group?"

"Something like that."

For a moment, Eggsy really considers saying no. But then he thinks of Harry's disappointed face. Eggsy's got nothing to prove; Harry's seen him at his worst and still thought he was someone worthwhile. He wants to, though. He wants a place in this awful place. Arthur's got to die of old age eventually, anyway. Maybe the next director will consider abolishing the dog-killing and creating some extra seats. In the meantime, he could actually spend some time with Harry instead of lurking around his hospital room. He'd known a comatose Harry longer than a conscious one. He'd like to change that.

Eggsy puts a chokehold around his pride and says, "Yeah. I can do it."

"Excellent. You'll be leaving immediately."

And it's not that Eggsy's an idiot. This all seems too easy, too lucky, but Arthur quickly packs him for the States with a pamphlet for a weirdo church group and a, "Good luck, agent-in-training."

He's got nothing better to do anyway, now that he's not a candidate anymore.

Hours later, collapsed in a pool of his own and other people's blood, Eggsy curses Arthur with every possible horrible fate. He'd tried to get out, he had, but between the anger pounding through his head and the surprising number of knives people had brought into the church, he'd only lasted a couple minutes before he was brought down by three men. They'd subsequently killed each other, but Eggsy can't even take comfort in that.

He tries to call for help through his glasses, but there's something wrong with them. Nothing's been coming up on his screen at all.

It's a crappy way to die. He'd never thought he'd live to a hundred and die surrounded by bratty grandchildren, but this isn't it, either.

He thinks it'd be nice if Harry were here. Not dying with him, but just here. He wouldn't mind it at all.

"Harry," Eggsy says, but he can't remember what he was going to say. _I wanted to fuck you the first time I saw you. Should've hit on you before you told me about my dad and things got so full of feelings. Are you going to blame yourself for this, too?_ "I don't think you can hear me, but— the mission's a dud. I think— I wasn't supposed to survive. Didn't bring JB with me. With a lab tech. Arthur's orders. Don't stuff him. That's weird."

He thinks he says more, but his mouth starts to feel wrong, and it gets too hard to say another word.

.

A thousand miles away, Harry's attention is split between the blood-spattered scene on Merlin's screen and the multiple phone calls to every ambulance, hospital, and private practice within the church's radius. Eggsy's not even speaking clearly anymore, just mumbling words. _Arthur, Daisy, matter, stop_.

"The mission wasn't logged properly," Merlin says, his eyes unfocused as he reads from the screen in his glasses. "I've checked all the channels; according to everything I can find, the plane he took is still in its proper spot, the glasses are still in a maintenance bin in R&D due to a screen malfunction issue, and he was sent without proper backup. I— Harry, I don't know what Arthur was thinking."

But as they share a look, Harry knows exactly what Merlin's thinking. It's the same thought that's pounding in his head.

"I'll deal with Arthur," Harry says, as the first ambulance arrives on the scene. Eggsy's glasses will work long after Eggsy's life ends, and the sound of sirens is clear even when Eggsy's heartbeat is not.

Harry could pray to God in heaven in half-remembered hymns and proper prayers, but it would be crass. He's been an agent for too long for it to be anything other than hypocritical to pray. And today, Harry's not going to do anything good. The decision was made the second Eggsy fell to the ground and Harry's heart nearly gave out with him. It broke him. Just a little, because he's already so broken, so tired of this world that keeps on taking (and he'd thought that for once, it had given him something good instead, in the form of a wonderful young man), and it's enough to shatter him completely. Broken pieces and loyalties and people who Harry Hart has been scatter around his brain like broken knives.

He'd only known Eggsy for a total of a couple months. Half that time was spend in a coma. It shouldn't hurt so much. But feelings, real ones that aren't part of a mission, never make enough sense.

Once he's sure he can't do anything more for Eggsy, he leaves to find Arthur. He opens his boss' study without knocking and finds him sitting behind his desk. It's a scene Harry's seen so many times, but this is the last.

"Valentine got to you," Harry says, not bothering to hide the gun in his hand.

Arthur nods, warily. "Of all the Arthurs of Kingsman, my predecessor was the only one to die of old age. I suppose you won't be allowing me the same privilege."

"You're right," Harry says, and walks three paces until he's standing across from a man he's known for decades. "Tell me why, Arthur."

Arthur meets his eyes when he tells a story of finding the true way, of how the world has gone to shit, of how this is the only way. At the very end, Arthur pulls out his gun. Harry's glad of it. It looks much less like an execution this way.

The man with the faster reflexes wins, and it's been decades since Arthur was an active agent.

.

"Self-defense," Harry says, throwing the chip onto Merlin's table. A bit of brain matter oozes onto the wood. The table is hopelessly stained by the time Harry finishes telling Merlin everything Arthur revealed to him.

Merlin closes his eyes for a long moment.

Twenty years, they've known each other, Harry and Merlin.

Harry doesn't give him time to rest before he says, "I'm going to Kentucky."

"Of course you are," Merlin says, hoarsely. There's an unstable sort of humor in his voice as he adds, "When'd you become such an unreliable fucker? First the coma, now this."

"Old age, I think," Harry replies. "Merlin—"

 _I'm sorry._ (Lie.) _I'm not sorry._ (Lie.) _I need to._ (Lie. Eggsy isn't the air he breathes. Harry lived quite a fine life without him in his life.) _I want to._ (Truth. It's a desperate, wholehearted want that looks so much like a need. He's never put stock to hearts breaking, but his might, if he has to put duty over personal honor and love once again.) _He needs me._ (Truth. Always, just like Harry's found he needs Eggsy.)

"Go save your boy," Merlin cuts in. "I'll find a way for the rest of the world to survive this."

The world needs him, Harry knows. The world always needs him, though now it's especially important. But Eggsy's thousands of miles away and completely alone. Whenever Valentine's plan hits, Eggsy—if he's still alive, but the wound wasn't as deep as it could've been, and Harry's hands are clenched around a tired hope—will need someone to keep him safe.

Plainly put, the world may go fuck itself.

"You have a damn good agent here already," Harry tells him.

"A young, inexperienced one," Merlin corrects. With a glance at the agent in question, he adds, "Very good, though."

"You don't have to spare my feelings," Roxy tells him with a snort. "Give me a laptop and I'll free up a plane and book a flight plan that doesn't send the US into a possible terrorist attack panic."

"Thank you."

Roxy nods. "Get him back."

"I'll try my best," Harry says hoarsely, meaning it like nothing else. He leaves after asking them to see to Eggsy's family—and Harry's, for all that they've barely seen each other in years—and comes across a lab tech leading JB on a leash.

"I'll be taking him off your hands now," he tells her.

JB trots after him onto the plane. 

.

Flying is a tiny bit skill and mostly autopilot, Harry has learned over the past couple decades. In the time he spends in a metal box, he watches the video feed of Eggsy's last moments one more time. He tells himself he's looking for information on what happened, but lying is a boring game when it's to oneself.

He thinks of could've beens and should've beens, like he had with the Lancelot that had been his friend, like he had with Eggsy's father.

Finding the hospital the church attack victims were taken to is child's play. Merlin's no help—he has saving the world to do, as he'd told Harry, unable to be angry but so very disappointed—but Harry's been an agent for a very long time. He knows what to do.

He finds Eggsy in a hospital room packed with bodies, barely hanging on to life. And when Merlin alerts him of Valentine and Arthur and the cell phone chips, Harry shoves a year's worth of cash at a doctor and takes her and Eggsy to the nearest safehouse he knows of, hoping it's enough to save them.

.

It's all worth it when Eggsy opens his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
